Subsequently, she exposed the results concerning the role of schools in Holocaust education. The studies show that school means less and less in the process of absorbing knowledge about Holocaust. “Similar to family, lessons at school are less and less quoted by young people as the sources of their knowledge about the Holocaust.” According to Mrs. Ambrosewicz-Jacobs, the level of knowledge or its correctness is practically not connected with school education in history. “Young people who know basic information about the Holocaust obtained it outside the school context. Although the knowledge level about the Holocaust is systematically decreasing, people who lack this knowledge also lack knowledge about other facts from history. The knowledge of historical facts of young people is very low.” She also drew the interesting conclusion that “both the extensiveness of school education about the Holocaust and the final grade that a student might get in history do not necessarily reflect the actual knowledge they possess.” Schools appear to be of minor importance or even counterproductive regarding the struggle against prejudice, and “poorly conducted school education may also increase the negative approach that students might have towards Jews and might increase nationalist attitudes.”
Dr. Stec finished her presentation by saying that the majority of these studies are based on the declarations of participants. In the case of studying and analyzing the impact and level of knowledge of facts acquired by young people, she stated that “it might be the right approach”, but to measure the impact of Holocaust education on shaping attitudes and instilling values to young people, “perhaps the source of data is not too credible. That is why these studies should be carried out on a wider scale, perhaps by social psychologists who might use interdisciplinary methodological approaches.” She raised relevant questions to keep researching the effects of Holocaust education, such as “What should they know after the completion of an educational program? What is the satisfactory minimum level of knowledge which they can use in practice at a further level of their learning? Can we really talk about the net value of education in a memorial site?”
She concluded by saying that “the participation in an educational program is only one of a number of factors which might affect the creation of the attitudes of young people and their values system, and may affect their system of gaining knowledge.”
Prof. Marek Kucia concluded the overall presentation by saying: “These young people are rooted in other dimensions of contemporary culture. This contemporary culture lies very far away from the values and processes that are meant to be communicated by the memorial site. That is why I wouldn’t like to be pessimistic that such results show that the effect of study programs are not as we would like them to be. But as was said at some point during the previous panel’s debate, even if in 15 groups there were three people who were positively affected, such work does make sense. This is the optimistic note with which I would like to close my presentation.”